Developer Hiring Blog

Rich Moy

Rich is a Content Marketing Writer at Stack Overflow, where he covers the latest in tech recruiting and developer engagement. When he's not writing, Rich can be found hanging with his wife, watching his favorite college football team with his dad, or running around Manhattan in preparation for his next marathon.

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Recent Posts

Although it was first explored in an academic setting back in the mid-1990s, the term “employer brand” is often (and mistakenly) viewed as a buzzword in HR circles today. This is especially the case when it comes to hiring developers, many of whom aren’t eager to switch jobs. In recent years, we’ve seen plenty of examples of compelling employer branding materials that have helped talent acquisition teams engage and connect with passive tech candidates.

It’s not difficult to see how employer branding can boost your hiring strategy when you need to increase awareness. But what if you lead recruitment for a large organization with a decades-long history? How much time should you invest in building your employer brand if your business is already widely recognized?

Recent studies show that well-known companies have the most to lose if they don’t take their employer brand seriously. Wade Burgess of the Harvard Business Review says that if a company with over 10,000 employees has a negative reputation, it could cost them up to $7 million in additional wages. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at a few other ways that your employer brand delivers value to your entire organization.

The Washington Post is one of the world’s most recognizable news brands, attracting an average of 100 million readers a month. In recent years, The Post has transformed itself into a media and technology company, placing rapid experimentation, innovation and the user experience at the forefront of its strategy.

To support these changes, the company has overhauled its employer branding strategy. We spoke to Austin Graff, a Talent Marketing and Brand Specialist for The Post, about how it redefined its employer brand to attract technical candidates. Here’s what he had to say.

Over the last few years, recruitment teams have gotten more comfortable with using data to make informed decisions. One of the most common things that talent acquisition managers measure is the return on investment (ROI) of their developer hiring initiatives. Things such as application rates and cost-per-hire are fairly straightforward to understand.

Still, there are many other facets of a recruitment strategy that you should measure. In fact, you could argue that onboarding programs are just as crucial to your developer hiring success. But how do you calculate the ROI of onboarding developers? Here are a few things to consider.

Talent acquisition leaders understand the value that a strong employer brand can deliver, especially when you need to hire technical talent. Since it’s such a critical component of a developer hiring strategy, there’s also a great deal of pressure to get your employer branding strategy right. Because most candidates are passive, companies are always looking for new ways to make a positive first impression on developers.

If this sounds familiar to you, there’s good news. Even though developers see an average of 5,000 ads per day, they aren’t looking for flashy graphics or outrageous promises about your open roles. But there are a few subtle tweaks that you can make to drive additional clicks to your careers website. Here’s how to do it.

Most HR certifications don’t require you to understand the ins and outs of ad retargeting. If you’ve never used this technology before, Dan Hecht at HubSpot explains that retargeting ad campaigns serve your banner ads to people who have already visited your website.

Recently, employers have begun experimenting with retargeting campaigns to boost their employer branding efforts. Because developers are receptive to ads that are relevant to their career goals, a retargeting campaign could provide a boost to your employer branding strategy. But according to a recent survey by Nanigans, 77% of consumers think that they see too many ads from the same companies.

While it’s a unique challenge to stay relevant without turning developers off, there are a few things you can do to strike the right balance. Keep the following tips in mind if you’re considering an ad retargeting campaign for tech candidates.

Over the last few years, we’ve asked developers a lot of questions through our yearly survey. Each time, we’ve seen new programming languages emerge, changes in developer salaries, and increases in employment rates. But one thing has remained consistent: Developers expect potential employers to be transparent through the recruitment process.

In response, many employers have optimized their employer branding strategies to address developers’ top job evaluation criteria. Some companies have already begun seeing the impact of their efforts. But what if you’re still trying to figure out how to get transparency “right?” What do developers want to see on your careers page, job listings, and online advertisements?

As you might have already guessed, the answer is multifaceted. Here are a few tips to consider whenever you promote your brand to tech candidates.

When you hear the phrase “employer branding,” what immediately comes to mind? If you’re like many people in talent acquisition, you probably think of assets such as job listings, careers websites, and recruitment emails. But as we learned from Lee Jones at trivago, companies can also impact their developer hiring with creative and informative banner advertising campaigns.

That doesn’t mean advertising to developers is easy. Experts say that the average Internet user sees 5,000 ads per day, and many of them are invasive and irrelevant. Based on what we learned in the 2018 State of Developer Engagement, programmers are particularly wary of the ads that they see online.

The good news? A few small tweaks to your campaigns can help you build trust with tech candidates through advertising. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

When C-level leaders increase the pressure to hire developers, it’s natural for talent acquisition managers to micromanage their teams. If this sounds familiar to you, you likely have plenty of company.

But Marcel Schwantes, Principal and Founder of Leadership From the Core, says that this is one of the biggest mistakes that a manager can make. He continues by writing, “Involve those who will be affected by the implementation by enlisting their energy and insights, or be left with people asking ‘What were they thinking when they rolled this out?’”

It makes perfect sense to involve your team as you optimize your talent management strategy. But how can you do this without giving them too much autonomy? Here are a few tips to help you share leadership with your direct reports.

The most successful engineering teams have two things in common: Talented programmers and exceptional managers to lead them.

Engineering managers have a lot of the same responsibilities as non-technical managers. For the most part, they are focused on their people. Not only do they coach individuals, but they also evaluate and optimize how the team’s output advances the company’s overall goals.

Most, if not all, of today’s engineering managers began their careers as developers. As a result, your ideal candidate needs to possess a unique combination of technical and managerial skills. Finding candidates that can write code and motivate programmers is a difficult task for any talent acquisition leader. To make it a little easier for you and your recruitment team, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Ask anyone outside of talent acquisition to describe your team’s work, and you’ll get a variety of responses. Some people might highlight your efforts to retain developers and keep them happy. But the majority will talk about your recruitment strategy. For many HR leaders, this is especially the case when they try conveying the value of developer hiring to executives.

If this resonates with you, you can probably think of at least one frustrating conversation related to your team’s efforts. To help you communicate the value of talent acquisition, let’s review a few of the most critical roles that it plays, and how they impact your entire company.